Flame of Recca has been one of my favorite anime and manga series. It's unique fighting style, various abilities, and its highly surprising twists in its plot makes it one of the best anime and manga to date.

However in this hub I will talk solely on the anime of Flame of Recca.

If anyone didn't notice, Flame of Recca's anime and its manga are a little different in their story and ending. For example, the anime only portrays up to half the manga series. To find out the whole story, one must actually read the manga series.

Yet it still make a great anime. Personally for myself, I watched the anime first before getting interested with the manga series.

The story starts off with a distant past in the age of ninjas and samurais. A lady carrying baby Recca was running away from a war and used a technique to open up a portal to allow Recca to escape. It was also revealed that Recca was to be the leader of the Hokage Ninja Clan.

Afterwards, the story swtiched back to modern times. Recca reappeared as a teenager and was found fighting an impossibly strong teenage guy by the name of Ishijima Domon (C’mon, which teenager could crash through a wall of bricks without a scratch?).

Recca was dodging and running away from Domon at the start, and clearly Domon was agitated with Recca for not confronting him to a physical fight.

Recca, standing on a tree branch,  replied that he just couldn’t get serious with Domon because of Domon’s nose ring, and Domon was infuriated! Domon then ran forward and struck the tree with his palms to knock Recca out of balance.

But alas, it was a body double that fell off the tree!

Recca escaped from Domon’s attack, and proceeded to counter attack Domon with fireworks bombs. Domon got hit straight on, but he was struck with the same trick before, therefore he didn’t seemed interrupted nor hurt.

Domon ran after Recca, smirking to the fact that Recca’s attack was useless, and suddenly he fall into a hole! It was a trap by Recca, and Domon accused Recca for using a dirty trick.

Recca refuted that accusation, and began reciting the theories of being a ninja. Domon was unfazed, and began mocking Recca concerning his ninja ideologies.

Recca punished Domon by lighting up fire crackers into the hole!

Recca challenged Domon that if Domon ever defeats him, he will be Domon’s little suck-up ninja.

Recca went home, and a short introduction about Hanabishi Recca was given. It also appears that someone was monitoring Recca’s movements through a crystal ball.

Recca was hungry, and he looked for his dad to have his lunch. His dad is a fireworks manufacturer, and Recca gave a good kick to his dad for smoking while manufacturing fireworks!  His dad retaliated back with a similar kick, and replied that he ate Recca’s share of lunch.

So far the story is just building the background of Recca, hence we got to be patient with the show.

A short snippet of the antagonists is revealed, Kouran and Kurei.

It appears that Kouran was looking for the secret of immortality, and Kurei was responsible to find “it”.

Back to Recca, Recca was eating his lunch, and he was so charmed by a kind and beautiful girl momentarily, to the point that he was pouring milk on his legs and dropped his lunch.

The girl was taking care of a group of young children, and they were watching some construction taking place. I don’t really believe that young children would be so interested with construction machines, but anyway that was happening at this point.

Recca went to seek the girl, and saw that an accident was about to take place when one of the vehicles lost control. Metal pillars were found crashing towards the girl, and the girl was using her body to shield the young children.

Recca saved the damsel in distress by doing his acrobatic jump, and pushed the girl with the children away while he got hit on his head by the metal pillars. (Yes, it is a typical set-up, I know.)

Blood was flowing from Recca’s head, and he passed out. However it seems that the girl has a healing ability, and she proceeded to heal him.

While Recca was unconscous, he saw a princess in his dream, and that princess was healing him too. Recca woke up from his dream, and found that he was healed, with many spectators staring at him. I don’t know why but he got up in a frantic state, and ran away from the scene.

The girl found Recca at a park and introduced herself as Sakoshita Yanagi. Recca was surprised that Yanagi knew his name, but found out that they were actually studying in the same school. Recca was musing that Yanagi looked exactly  the same as the princess in his dream.

Yanagi revealed to Recca about her healing powers by healing another of his wounds. Yanagi wanted Recca her healing powers to be kept a secret, for fear that she might be labelled as weird.

To show his gratitude for healing him, Recca brought Yanagi to a dark and abandoned warehouse to show his hand-made fireworks to her.

The little romantic and peaceful view didn’t last long, as Recca and Yanagi was attacked by a mysterious lady. The lady introduced herself as Kage Houshi, and it was revealed that she was seeking Recca for the past 400 years. She revealed that Recca was transported 400 years earlier into this modern dimension to escape the war that engulfed the Hokage clan, and Recca was the sole survivor of the Hokage clan.

Kage Houshi wanted Recca to create flames with his right arm for her to see. Recca was unfazed about the story, and he didn’t believe he had the ability to create flames. In order to escape from Kage Houshi, Recca attempted to use a smokescreen to mask their traces, but Kage Houshi proved to be a veteran ninja by wounding Recca with a thrown dagger.

Kage Houshi resort to attacking Recca to force flames out of Recca’s arm. Recca was so weak against Kage Houshi that he was almost instantaneously defeated without any fightback, however Yanagi stepped in to shield Recca with her body.

Kage Houshi slashed Yanagi with a dagger, and it was revealed that though Yanagi had the power to heal, she cannot heal herself.

Recca was infuriated, and he proceeded to counter-attack by using a smoke screen. Kage Houshi thought that it was another usual smoke-screen, but Recca got a nice good kick at her side after Kage Houshi shot a dagger at the wrong target.

However Kage Houshi could manupilate and teleport through shadows, and she attacked Recca mercilessly with physical blows and cuts. Recca could not even retaliate.

Recca was pushed to the wall and fell on the ground. Kage Houshi walked over to the injured Yanagi and was about to put an end to Yanagi’s life.

 Recca cried out helplessly with his arm stretching out to Yanagi, “No!”

In his anguish, frustration and anger, Recca’s right arm started to burn.

And flames were emitting out of his arms. Recca was surprised.

Recca couldn’t control it, and he fired his flames at Kage Houshi with a dramatic pose.

And to everyone’s disappointment to that spectacular display, Kage Houshi wasn’t even scratched. However Kage Houshi was pleased to see the flames, and challenged Recca to become even stronger before disappearing from the scene.

Recca then picked up Yanagi and carried her to safety. In the midst of it, Yanagi woke up, relieved to find out that Recca was alright and that their enemy left them alone. Recca started to call Yanagi, “Hime”, which means Princess, and swears that he will be Yanagi’s ninja to protect her.

I felt that this anime series is really good, although it starts off pretty slowly. Hence I post it up here to share with everyone.

The above episode synopsis is edited and taken from my own blog, where I review anime and give episode recaps. Some of my personal comments are not found in here but in that blog.

In addition, the video streaming links to watch this episode are found also at my blog, at http://anime.manga-journey.com/.